Summary: Chapter 17
Richie returns to his unit and learns that Sergeant Simpson
has finally gone home. The new squad sergeant, Dongan, is a racist
who consistently puts black soldiers in the most dangerous positions
during patrols. Lobel approaches Peewee and Richie to tell them
that he is on their side if a serious race problem breaks out within
the squad. Richie receives a letter from Peewee’s old girlfriend,
Earlene, apologizing for marrying another man. Afraid that Peewee
will find the letter and be hurt all over again, Richie burns it.
Kenny writes and reports that he has taken a part-time job. He also
mentions that Johnny Robinson, a neighborhood boy, has been killed
in Vietnam. Richie is shocked that someone who looked so young could
have been in Vietnam.
The Vietnamese allies find a woman walking with two children along
the rice paddies surrounding the base camp. American soldiers bring
her to the camp, but there is no interpreter around to question
her. Most of the American soldiers are sympathetic to the mother,
thinking that she is being unfairly detained at their camp. Peewee
hurries to make the woman’s children a doll out of grass. Just as
he finishes the doll, the woman hands one of her children to a soldier.
Seconds later, the child explodes in the soldier’s arms, killing
him. The child had been equipped with mines by his mother, made
into a weapon, and sacrificed. The American soldiers then shoot
down the woman and her second child.
Summary: Chapter 18
Johnson tells Richie that Dongan approached him to inquire whether
Lobel was a homosexual. Johnson reports that he did not give an
answer, since he feels that what Lobel does in bed is not his concern.
Johnson considers each man fighting by his side an appreciated ally.
Richie reflects that Johnson is a born leader who has also learned
much by fighting alongside others.
Tensions between the American soldiers and their Vietnamese allies
heighten when a Vietnamese colonel insists that the Americans try
to capture a crucial hill. Richie’s company climbs the hill without encountering
enemy soldiers and then returns to regroup with the Vietnamese soldiers.
When they climb the hill again, the Vietnamese soldiers take the
lead. This time, enemy soldiers attack the squad members. The squad
attempts to secure a nearby village in order to evacuate the area,
and Dongan is killed during the fight.
Summary: Chapter 19
Richie’s company has still not been evacuated, but he
and his fellow squad members know they need to leave as soon as
possible because a North Vietnamese battalion is coming to the village.
The company strips the tags and gear off dead American soldiers
and burns the bodies. One soldier is still alive, but his wounds
are clearly mortal, so one of his friends shoots him out of mercy
while everyone scrambles to escape. All of the dead soldiers’ identification
tags are lost in the confusion. Richie imagines writing a letter
to the families of the dead, telling them how their sons’ bodies
were burned in the forest while their comrades fled in fear and
panic. During the race to the choppers, Jamal freezes in sudden
panic until Gearhart shouts at him to start moving again. Richie
feels as if there is someone else in his body running for his life.
He wishes he could watch the rest of the war like a movie.
Analysis: Chapters 17–19
One of the most torturous aspects of war is the common
soldier’s lack of control over his life. We feel this utter helplessness
of the soldier in the face of fate vividly when the army forces
Richie to return to his unit after a peaceful period of recuperation.
He desperately wants to avoid this fate, feeling that he is psychologically
and emotionally unable to face any more combat. Yet he has no choice
but to return, since he has effectively relinquished control over
his life upon joining the army. The soldiers are similarly helpless
in the face of the dangerous careerism of men like Captain Stewart
and the racism of Sergeant Dongan. Stewart forces his company to
take the most dangerous missions so that he can be promoted to major,
and Dongan forces minority soldiers in his squad to take the most
dangerous jobs because he considers them expendable. Though the
soldiers know that Dongan’s treatment of the black soldiers is unfair and
that Stewart’s treatment of the entire company is selfish, they cannot
change these men’s decisions. The army is a rigid hierarchy in which
inferiors can never question or challenge the orders of superiors.
